


On The Road To The Wall

by Name_Pending



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, References to Ramsay's Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 10:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11987517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Name_Pending/pseuds/Name_Pending
Summary: On the road to the Wall, Sansa spent a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to see Jon Snow again. She longed for their reunion. She wasn’t sure that he would be so thrilled to see her, though.





	On The Road To The Wall

**Author's Note:**

> “I spent a lot of time thinking about what an ass I was to you.”  
> “We were children.”  
> “I was awful, just admit it.”  
> “You were occasionally awful. I’m sure I can’t have been great fun, always sulking in the corner while the rest of you played.”  
> “Can you forgive me?”  
> “There’s nothing to forgive.”  
> “Forgive me.”  
> “Alright. Alright, I forgive you.”

The road to the Wall was long and cold. Brienne was insistent on staying off the King’s Road as much as possible. It was the easiest, quickest route north, but it was also the most obvious one and Ramsay Bolton was sure to be hunting for them still. Once Sansa would have complained about the rough terrain and less than hospitable conditions, but that was before she’d learned what true discomfort was, before she understood real pain, before Joffrey and Cersei and Ramsay. Ramsay most of all.

Now, Sansa simply held her tongue no matter how rocky the paths were, no matter how cold it got. Her thighs chafed from the long ride, cuts left by her husband were pulled open repeatedly by the rough treatment, and her fingers blistered from gripping the frosty reins. Her womanhood was a constant, unpleasant ache; Ramsay’s abuse had left her pained and the riding was not helping. Nevertheless, she didn’t complain. So long as she was riding north, she was riding away from Ramsay Bolton, and that was enough to make her smile. 

She was safer now than she had been since she returned to her childhood home. The road north was cold and dangerous, it was true, but now she had Brienne, her brave knight. As a child she had prayed for a knight in shining armour to come - Brienne was not what she had expected but she was definitely what Sansa needed. She thanked the old gods and the new for bringing Brienne to her. She owed the female warrior her life, and she felt safer with her and Podrick than she had in a long, long time.

She missed Theon, though, and that surprised her. When she had first seen him at Winterfell she’d hated him, hated him almost as much as she hated Joffrey. It was bad enough that he’d betrayed Robb, but knowing that she had been facing the man who’d murdered her two little brothers, the man who betrayed her to Ramsay …

She had hated Theon but then he had saved her. She had been stunned as he’d lifted Myranda and thrown her to the ground with a sickening crack that she barely heard. Theon had jumped from the castle walls with her, risked his life to get her away, guided her and held her. He would have died to protect her, she knew. She had been so grateful to have him with her, and his sorrow over what he had done to Robb and the farm boys he’d killed … Sansa couldn’t keep hating him, although she wasn’t sure forgiveness would come as easily as her hatred had gone.

If there was one thing she had learned since leaving Winterfell, it was that people were complicated and difficult and not at all like they were in songs and stories. In the stories men were either good or evil, but she had learned that most were somewhere in between. And the people who were truly evil … well, they were not like Theon at all, they were like Ramsay. And most people, she thought now, were capable of some level of change.

She herself had changed a lot, she knew. She was not the naive little girl that had left Winterfell. Sometimes she wished she still were, but she knew it was for the better. That naive girl would not live long in this new life of hers.

She wondered if Jon would see how much she had changed. Surely he had to see it. But would he approve of the changes?

Truthfully, she was worried about what Jon would say when he saw her.

Sansa knew that going to Castle Black was the right thing to do. It was possibly the only place that was safe for her right now. She knew that Arya was out there now and she wanted to see her sister again, but she had no idea where she was. Bran and Rickon might be out there, too; she had to hold onto her hope that both her brothers were still alive somewhere.

But the only one she knew how to find right now was her bastard brother Jon Snow, and that made her a little nervous.

She and Jon were not close as children. She had probably gotten along with him better than she had with her sister, but that was only because she spoke to him so little and was forced to spend so much time with Arya. She missed Arya now but back then she had resented her wild sister. At least Jon had been courteous to her, if distant.

If anything, she thought now with dismay, he had been nervous around her. He had never mocked her (at least not to her face; she wondered what he and Arya had said in private, they had always had a special bond she was never included in) and had always been polite and courteous. But he had been wary of her, and she knew why.

It shamed her slightly now to think on how she had treated him, simply for the crime of sharing only half her blood. Robb had told her once that there had been a time when she’d called Jon ‘brother’ the way she gave Robb the title, but it must have been too long ago for her to remember. As long as she could remember, she had given Jon his correct label: ‘half-brother’. Her mother had always used it and Sansa had done the same. After all, she wanted to be the proud, dutiful lady her mother was, and so had copied her in everything since she was very small.

She and her mother had been alone in their use of proper labels, though. Father had never insisted on reminding her of Jon’s status as a bastard, and her siblings had never cared to name him their half-brother, simply accepting him as one of them. Robb must have been aware of the difference, she thought, but if he had said anything about it to Jon, then he had said it in private.

She hadn’t just used the proper name, either, she remembered. She had ignored Jon at mealtimes, as her mother did, and glared at his refusal to pray in the sept. She had spent time both there and in the godswood, and at times Lady Catelyn had dragged all her children to pray to the Seven. Jon, though, stuck resolutely to the old gods. Sansa wondered now if he had done that deliberately.

Sansa had been the one to remind Arya - more times than she could recall - that Jon was different to them. They were the Starks of Winterfell and Jon Snow was just a bastard boy who happened to have half their blood. Back then the half of his blood that should have been Tully but wasn’t had seemed so important to her. Now she knew better.

It didn’t matter now, she knew, that he was only half-Stark. He was her brother. He had grown up alongside her and was a part of her family. He had played games with them as children, had loved their father the same, had shared mealtimes with them most evenings. He was her brother no matter who his mother was, and it shamed her to think that she had been so dismissive of him.

Perhaps, she thought guiltily, what really shamed her was that now she had nobody to turn to in the world but her bastard brother. She prayed that he would not turn her away.

 _Surely he won’t_ , she thought to herself as she pulled her cloak tightly around her body against the biting wind. _I’m his sister. Surely he’ll be glad to see me_.

But would he really?

Jon had always been wary of her in a way he wasn’t of Arya or their brothers, and while she had never been cruel to him she had been undeniably superior. It was possible that he still resented her for it.

She remembered the last time she’d seen him, just before they’d left Winterfell. She had gone to say her goodbyes to Robb and Rickon (the former a little tearful and the latter sweet and sad) when it had occurred to her that she should probably say goodbye to her half-brother as well. She probably wouldn’t have bothered, but he was going to the Wall and there was a possibility that she would never see him again. She was certain that if she did see him again, it would not be for a very, very long time. She wouldn’t miss him the way she’d miss her mother and trueborn brothers, but a lady, she thought, would say goodbye to him all the same, if only for their father’s sake. Father would be saddened if she had left without a word to her half-brother, whom he had always tried to count among his trueborn children. Her mother would understand.

Their goodbye hadn’t been meaningful, though. Jon could tell that she was there out of duty, and her words had been proper and void of the closeness he received from Robb and Arya. Jon had wished her well, he’d been kind, but they had hurried through the goodbye quickly and went their separate ways.

Sansa hadn’t even thought about it until now. Had Jon? Did he resent her for it?

The closer they got to the Wall, the more Sansa worried about it. She had no idea what she would do if she got to Castle Black and Jon refused to see her. She was certain that he’d see Arya or Bran, but her?

 _He was always honourable, like Father. Everyone said so_ , Sansa thought firmly. _He’ll take care of me for him_.

Surely Jon’s love for their shared father would outweigh the problems of the past, the fact that they did not share a mother.. 

“Lady Sansa?”

Sansa was shaken from her unpleasant worries by Brienne’s voice.

“My Lady, it’s getting dark. We should set up camp for the night and continue at first light.”

Sansa hadn’t even noticed, but now she glanced up at the sky and saw that it was overcast and dull. Riding on such perilous terrain in the dark risked the horses stumbling, and as much as she wanted to reach the Wall, she knew that it would be far harder without the horses.

“Alright.”

Sansa dismounted with Podrick’s help, and settled down by the fire that Brienne quickly built. The small flames did little to warm her, and she was grateful for Brienne’s squire siting close to her, sharing his body heat. She was sorry to see the boy leave when Brienne sent him to hunt something down for their supper, although she hoped that he found something - last night there had been nothing to hunt and they’d all gone to sleep with empty bellies. Their original supplies had run out days ago.

While they waited for Podrick to return, Brienne and Sansa spoke amicably. Sansa knew that Brienne was trying to pry out of her the details about what had happened to her at Winterfell, but she refused to speak of it, turning the conversation away to any other topics she could think of.

The two had been silent for several minutes when Sansa glanced over and asked, “Brienne, how much longer until we reach Castle Black?”

“It will probably take three or four days, my Lady, depending on the weather.”

Sansa simply nodded, ignoring the way her heart was pounding in her chest. Three days, perhaps four, and then she would be there. She would see the Wall for the first time in her life, and she would see her half-brother for the first time in years.

She could only pray that he wanted to see her as badly as she wanted to see him.


End file.
